A look at the monetary incentive players have to perform well in the postseason.

Incentive. At the workplace, it comes in many forms. For some, it’s merely being able to keep your job. In other cases, one can receive a pay bonus. So whether for Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation or players in Major League Baseball, bonuses can be used as a carrot for performance.

For players in Major League Baseball, bonuses come in a host of different shapes and sizes. From signing to performance to awards, a player’s contract can have bonuses as a key element. One that often gets overlooked, however, centers on the postseason in the form of “shares.”

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A look at how Tony La Russa was viewed throughout his career on the night of his retirement.

The newly-crowned and paraded World Champion St. Louis Cardinals called a press conference Monday morning. Initial speculation wondered if the Cards had somehow wrangled a long-term contract out of Albert Pujols. Other, more cautious spectators imagined that it was about a contract extension for catcher Yadier Molina. At least one person thought the Cards were making an announcement about the latest Wezen-Ball post.

Instead, the Cardinals shocked the baseball world by announcing the retirement of 34-year-veteran manager Tony La Russa. It would make La Russa the first manager in history to retire following a World Series victory. Considering that the announcement came less than 72 hours after the final out of the Series, it must not have been that difficult of a decision for La Russa.

A 1912 article from Chief Bender gives us a surprising (and not-so-surprising) look at some keys to the Athetics' success.

From 1909 to 1914, the Philadelphia Athletics were quite probably the best team in baseball. In those six seasons, the A's went to four World Series, winning three of them. Their worst finish in that run was in 1912, when their 90 wins weren't even close to the 105-win juggernaut of the World Champion Red Sox.

That summer, Philadelphia hurler Chief Bender (who would go on to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1953) penned an article for Boys' Life magazine. The official Boy Scouts of America magazine had only started publishing the year before. In that August 1912 issue, Chief Bender "of the World's Champion Athletics" talks to the kids about why baseball "is the real game of the Nation" and why the sport is great for boys' body and mind.

Can even the dregs of the hyper-competitive AL East draw plausible comparisons to a World Series winner?

Just how good was the American League East in 2010? The New York Yankees and their $213 million payroll had to settle for second place, and the third place Boston Red Sox would have finished a spot higher in three of the other divisions—and that was just what their backups and still-green minor leaguers were able to accomplish filling in for the actual team that spent most of the season on the disabled list. Three of the top four (and four of the top seven) teams in Jay Jaffe's final Hit List of 2010 hailed from the AL East, and the second-best record of the last two months by any team in the AL came from the last-place Baltimore Orioles, who went 34-23 under new manager Buck Showalter.

How good will the American League East be in 2011? Those cellar-dwelling Orioles may be as good as a World Series winner. That is not a joke—the Orioles, who are likely to finish in last place in the East regardless of the quality of their team due to the four clubs in front of them, still project to put a quality roster on the field, one that puts them on par with a past World Champion: the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.

Looking at players from two defensive positions on this year's Hall of Fame ballot.

Like ballotmate Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin and Alan Trammell are overwhelmingly qualified for the Hall of Fame, but didn't gain entry last year. Larkin made a strong showing in his first year on the ballot, one which suggests he'll reach Cooperstown sooner or later, while Trammell continued to receive a puzzling lack of support and watched his odds of election grow even longer. Today, we'll use JAWS to re-examine their Hall of Fame cases, and with just a week until the ballot results are announced, we'll also take a brief look at the backstops on the ballot—catching up, if you will.

Bert Blyleven, in his final year of eligibility, makes his last stand for Cooperstown.

It's fair to say that in these quarters, the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot is the most hotly anticipated one in the eight seasons since I began covering the Cooperstown beat for Baseball Prospectus. That's because when the 2010 ballot results were announced back on January 6, Bert Blyleven fell just five votes short of enshrinement, receiving 74.2 percent of the necessary 75 percent. As disappointing as his close-but-no-cigar showing in his 13th year on the ballot might have been, Blyleven's tally represented a significant surge from the 62.7 percent he received the year before. After a long, hard climb from his having receiving less than 20 percent in each of his first three years on the ballot, his election is so close that the pitcher and all of those who have supported him over the years can practically taste it.

This Fall Classic wasn't just a thriller but a seminal moment in the changing of the baseball's culture.

You had to be there.

There really isn’t much else you can say about the World Series of 1972, a Fall Classic that was among the best ever in baseball terms and perhaps the most meaningful ever in terms of the world that was revolving around it at the time.